Why so many ridicule or criticize Natalie Harp so harshly?
Everyone is endowed by Nature with a combination of certain abilities. She, like her critics, just wants to use them to gain the most benefits. She swoons over Donald Trump the president of the United States, the guy who wagged his finger and half of the White House complex, the proud symbol of America for years, disappeared, or even kisses his ass, so what? What wrong with it? Honestly, nothing wrong with it.
In life, especially fast-moving American life, where to aim your arrow is essential for success. If luck gives you a chance and puts you next to the president of the United States, if you pay attention to your detractors and are reluctant to kiss his ass (and kiss it publicly if that gives you more benefits) that would be a fatal mistake of your on-the-make-life that would kill your one-in-a-life chance to succeed – to find your place in the sun as Sammy Davis had hollered for years.
Look at the big boss. Didn’t he know he did not say correctly about a lot of things? Of course, he did but why should he care if his lies are pleasing like singing an oldies song to the ears of the over-65-year-old voters? Are you, righteous critics, sure that sticking to the high road with ethical and moral principles is the sure way to success? Since 2026, or even before, MAGA has shown you that to be wrong. They saw them as unimportant or have probably turned them into being unimportant. Nothing succeeds like success and if you fail to gain power, I repeat, you are irrelevant.
Criticizing success is, frankly, nothing but jealousy babbling. If Ms. Harp succeeded in banning some media outlet from the White House press corps as rumored, it would be euphoria and proof that she is competent in doing what she has been doing – dropping effective words into power’s ear and moving the world. And lugging the duffle bag next to the big boss only enhances the perception of being powerful.
I have said it first, proudly, before Peter Thiel, in a post on X that the president’s people, many of them, have exhibited incompetence. So, when the billionaire/investment genius/political thinker/social and political influencer/advisor-to-president Mr. Thiel said the same thing on September 24 on MD Meet podcast, then there is a common observation of such incompetence.
But somehow, such incompetence blends in well with the current American
political landscape and makes incompetence normal and acceptable. Imagine the mistakes committed by the intelligence agencies and the defense department under, say Leon Panetta, it would have caused uproars so deafening that heads would have rolled off those agencies instead of walking about nonchalantly.
MAGA has determined for itself that the U.S., or even the world, should not be what it has been. They don’t want to improve it. They want to remake it into something different. So, incompetence may be unimportant or perhaps the weapon to achieve the goal of turning society upside down, destroying it to build a new one just like bulldozing the East Wing to build a new what-ever.
Putting the name of President Donald J. Trump on a building specifically built and named after President John F. Kennedy to commemorate him was clumsy and weird but has served the purpose of whoever wanted to do it: as long as MAGA is the boss of the town, the Kennedy Memorial apparently stops being one; clumsy or not, three to four years may help the public to forget its name.
Caveat populus: you have a choice with your votes: to enable and continue the MAGA world where there is no such a thing as human society but only mortal combatting clans, and act like a true MAGA member: everyone for themselves. Or ask like John F. Kennedy what you can do for your country but not what your country can do for you – your clan.
JOHN P. LE PHONG
(This article appears on X, Facebook, and thelephongjournal.com)

In only two years and a half, MAGA has remarkably achieved many of its goals – easily.

For years, the U.S. clamored for other NATO’s members to increase their defense budgets as the U.S. carried some 62% of the total NATO defense spending. Faced with MAGA’s policy of “America First”, EU has been pushing for strategic autonomy, independent from the U.S. In other words, they are not relying on the American umbrella of security, economic and military, anymore. MAGA has got its wish: no more European piggyback on American expense.

The seemingly erratic declarations or statements insulting to its allies, the exorbitant tariff hike, and the effort to transform the U.S. into a police state have built a wall around it. It is now separated from the world, MAGA can do whatever they have wanted to do to transform the U.S.A. into a dictatorship. With or without a king, MAGA has run the country like a kingdom, treating Congress, let alone Democrats, like a side show.

It has decidedly defeated Woke politics and dreams: no more world influence or pressure on America politics to promote and protect minority groups, no more social ideology according to the world’s wisdom. There is now only one block, a solid block of influencers or deciders in American politics and society: the white block – white extremists or supremacists. The US Supreme Court sees to it that the Voting Rights Act will not hinder the Republicans from increasing their seats in Congress, potentially keeping Congress a long-time if not forever puppet. The rationale of the Louisiana v. Callais decision: Louisiana must act COLOR-BLIND.

When President Trump appointed several women to important cabinet positions, it led to the belief that the macho MAGA finally recognized that misogyny was wrong and women would be treated equally by MAGA.

Tulsi Gabbard looked serious in white. Kristi Noem with her rolled-up sleeves, hair flying with every step she took, was an unusual image of the head of a security agency that was supposed to be macho – unusual but still unknown and therefore acceptable.  Pam Bondi was (and still is) beautiful, poised, ramrod straight, sharp mind, and sharp tongue, all the attributes of an Amazon woman ready and able to confront chauvinism, giving hope that she would prove to be a formidable contribution to the women’s effort to assert their right to be treated fairly and justly.

Then, things unraveled in unexpected ways.

Ms. Bond stated early and openly that she was ready to release the Epstein files, all of them. She had just reviewed them and obviously was outraged by what she saw and read. There were only two groups of human beings in the files: young litle girls and men, much older and much more powerful men. There was only one game, if it could be called a game: the little girls trapped within the walls (brick, mortar, and other kinds of walls) and the men just did to them whatever and whenever they wanted, sadistic, sordid, base. The action called for was clear for Pam: inform the public then prosecute the wrongdoers.

Then, the AG dragged her feet. She postponed the release, and when she did, she released the files, redacted, selectively, as if her decision were influenced, not by what was right or wrong or women needed to fight back, but by some things or some ones else. If that were the case, everyone could guess the gender of these some ones.

    But her responses and attitude at Congressional hearings seemingly supported men’s entrenched belief that did serious damages to the Equal Right Movement: Women do not have equal substance.

    Congressional hearings are supposed to be a forum for the witnesses to provide answers or information to Members’ questions. The witnesses do not always answer all the questions, and not answering a Member’s question is not exactly difficult requiring high art. Her predecessors, Merrick Garland and William Barr avoided answering questions they did not want to answer with aplomb. But at her Congressional hearings, she behaved and spoke as if she were in an irate-neighbor-fighting-her-neighbor’s dog-messing-her-lawn. No grace under pressure, even though as a woman she should possess more grace than, say, her boss president Trump.

    The second woman cabinet secretary, Kristi Noem was asked by a Congress’ member a simple question if she had sexual relations with Corey Kowandowski. Her response was: “I am shocked that we are going down and peddling tabloid garbage in this committee today.” And “That kind of garbage has been refuted for years, and it is offensive that you have brought that up.” She should have learned from the master. On 60 Minutes, the President stated simply and succinctly, “I am not a pedophile”.

    What was missing in her answer was the “I”: It was refuted but “I” did not refute. The Occam Razor answer “No, I did not” would have done perfectly well for her. A listener could not help thinking that her dodging of the question indeed confirmed her extra marital affair.

Such lack of grace under pressure and roundabout talking, as read by their detractors, are signs of psychological weaknesses.

After they were gone, one could argue that MAGA had executed a Machiavellian maneuver to deal the Equal Right Movement a severe blow and bolster the misogynists’ prejudicial and sadistic position that the right place for women would be at home, in the kitchen, and in bed.

But their best and most striking achievement is to show how vulnerable and weak Democracy is and how to subvert it without having to fire a shot or even to violate the law.

JOHN P. LE PHONG
(This Article appears on Facebook, X, and thelephongjournal.com)

 

    The law, 40 U.S.C. §8106, says that no building or structure MAY BE erected on any federal reservation, park, or public grounds in the District of Columbia without express authority from Congress.

    The Trump Administration has demolished the White House’s East Wing and tried to build a ballroom on its ground without notifying Congress let alone getting its approval.

    The National Trust for Historic Preservation sues the Administration to block its construction for lack of authority to do so without Congress’ approval, citing the above-mentioned U.S. Code.

    To sue the Administration, the National Trust must have standing. That is the law of the land.

    To have standing to sue as the representative of its members, to quote Chief Justice John Robersts’ dissent, an organization such as the National Trust must show, among other things, that one of its members, Alison K. Hoagland, historian, historic-preservation scholar, would have standing to sue in her own right.

    To serve as the basis for her standing, Ms. Hoagland declares that she lives in Washington, D. C., and expects to visit the neighborhood around the White House about once a month. Having to view the finished ballroom the government is constructing would cause her to suffer injuries to her aesthetic, cultural, and historical interests because she finds the scale, height, and massing of the government’s design distasteful.

    The majority of the Court does not find her declaration sufficient to constitute standing because mere offense, disagreement, or distaste does not qualify as a concrete and particularized injury. It therefore sides with the Administration and allows the lower court’s stay of the construction of the ballroom to be terminated.

    The chief justice, John Roberts, a conservative judge himself, vehemently and totally disagrees. To say, he argues, that Ms. Hoagland’s injury is essentially: “I don’t like looking at the new building” is badly mischaracterizing her claim because Hoagland’s injury suffices for standing. A historic preservationist such as Hoagland can be aesthetically injured in a concrete, particularized way by the transformation of a historic building that she frequently enjoys.

    He cites court case precedents such as an environmentalist can sustain a concrete, particularized aesthetic injury from the extinction of a particular animal or the transformation of a particular forest or river that he regularly enjoys.

    He points out the irony of the majority’s decision, “With the Court’s rejection of Hoagland’s standing today, however, it now is the case that ‘I want to look at a crocodile’ can adequately answer the ever critical ‘what’s it to you?’ question of Article III standing, while ‘I want to look at the White House’ cannot – no matter how distinctive the particular viewer’s interest in looking at it may be.”

    Once again, this Court does not care much about stare decisis (to stand by things decided) or precedents when they are presented with an inconvenience, in this case, the National Trust’s lawsuit to prevent the administration from changing the historic landscape of the White House Compound.

    The Chief Justice’s discourse on the importance of the historic White House, “an iconic American building whose symbolism and history are wrapped up in its architecture” and why Ms. Hoagland’s standing to sue the Administration is on solid ground, is worth reading in full in his dissent.

    The most striking statement in his dissent is the sentence, “That construction (of the ballroom) is likely unlawful”, citing the Code mentioned at the beginning of this article.

    So, the majority skips that extremely important part of the lawsuit to dwell on the standing issue, even though their reasoning to dismiss Ms. Hoagland’s standing is shaky at best, to let the construction moving forward.

    Why the Trump Administration is in a rush to tamper with historic landmarks in the Capital? To literally build a legacy with buildings to make up for meager political achievements?

    Why this Supreme Court acts as if it were the Administration’s enabler?

    Concerned citizen, “Officer, the arsonists are burning that building down.”

    Lawman, “What’s it to you?”

    Citizen, “Uh, it is unlawful …”

    Lawman, “Move along and don’t bother them. You have no standing.”

    Whatever way to look at the majority’s decision, it is not judicial but clearly political.

JOHN P. LE PHONG                                                                                                         (This article appears on X, Facebook, and thelephongjournal.com)

    In 2024, the polls favored Kamala Harris. Donald Trump won the election with a comfortable margin.

    The pollsters asked questions. The voters responded and their responses were recorded. MAGA had poisoned the political atmosphere with racist or bigoted propaganda, Us versus Them. Ordinary voters were persuaded by them but did not want to be thought of as being racist. So, the answers could not and did not reflect the true sentiment and intention of the responders.

    The Democrats should not allow themselves to be in a celebrating mood just because the polls show the approval rating of the president is low and therefore Republicans would lose the House and the Senate come November. In a street interview by a news show, a white woman, formerly a MAGA voter, said that she was not very happy with high mortgage rate and rent, high price of groceries and gas, and the war and would not support the Republicans. She added that her husband would continue to support the president and the Republicans. In how many white Republican households, the wives will defy their husbands at the voting booth and vote Democrats? Only if they had never listened to Tammy Wynette’s Stand By Your Man.

    The MAGA’s propaganda may have been so entrenched that it can’t be dislodged immediately and easily. But the bad economy, tariffs, and the war may change their dark view tainted with racism of our society and help bring back Republicans to mainstream thinking and open their eyes to the rapid deterioration of American influence in the world, especially among its previously loyal allies and friends.

    AI has helped MAGA tremendously in their plotting and scheming. But reality indicates that our power, military or otherwise, has its limits in dealing with our enemies or unexpected circumstances. The plotting to preserve white supremacy is destructively divisive making us weak and has no justification morally, biologically, ethnically, evolutionarily, or anthropologically. It should disappear for the sake of a strong healthy and productive humane society, and to preserve our American way of life – not the billionaires’ way of life.

    Ironically, the advance of AI should convince the most diehard racists that there

is no ranking of races.

JOHN P. LE PHONG

(This article appears on X, Facebook, and thelephongjournal.com)

    Hunter Biden, a son of the Democratic President Joe Biden, sat on the board of a foreign country and was paid $50,000 a month for five years. He was investigated by the Republicans relentlessly who kept his laptop in the headlines for several years but his indictment for tax evasion did not have anything to do with the laptop. They skillfully turned a storm in a teapot into a hurricane for Hunter and his family.

    Jared Kushner worked extensively with the Arab world while in the government. Six months after he left his official position, he secured Two Billion Dollars from the Saudis for his investment fund. Not a peep from anyone on the Republican side.

    MAGA’s legal knowledge and skill in navigating the labyrinth of American laws and regulations were striking compared to the Democrats’! Hunter was a loner adventurer in the making-money wilderness and easily caught by the wolves. Kushner was working in coordination with his and his in-law’s family with the support of legal and financial experts and no less his father in law’s influence, more like a global network, the modus operandi of modern world’s mega money-makers. That is how the sitting president and his family made billions of dollars in 2025 while he was, and still is, in the White House, and sit pretty in New York and Palm Beach.

    It may offend ordinary people’s common sense, but it may not be illegal. They study the law carefully and push the envelope to pursue billions, not the $50,000 that poor Hunter was accused of.

    That says a lot about Donald Trump. He is a genius and has succeeded in spearheading a new brand of politics, you may call it the Randian politics of self-interest as a virtue, heretofore, an anathema to success in politics in America, or in any democratic political system, and made it work so well for him.

    But, as I said in a previous article, his absolute dominance of the Republican party leaves no room for growth for the next crop of leaders of the party.

    Where can you find another Republican who made 30573 false or misleading claims during his first presidential term and still got the votes to win a second term? Where can you find another politician, let alone a Republican, who raises the price of gas 35.8% higher in a year and a half, started a war without asking Congress and at the same time reported personal (his and his immediate family’s) revenue of over $2 billions, and his party dare not raise its voice. Even Democrats could not say an effective word except to vent their frustration by saying they were outrageous. Where can the Republican party find another leader who has relatives, sons, and son in law ride his coattail to fabulous rich?

    What Republican, or any politician in the world, said on TV this about his political opponent: “Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president? I mean, she’s a woman, and I’m not s’posedta say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?” and won the presidential election in the United States of America, which was supposed to be the world’s leading society of civility?

     Can any member of the Republican Party command the devotion and passion, bordering on infatuation, of a 35-year-old blonde, white lady? Could any of them, when they reached 80, be able to excite a 35-year-old beautiful woman to write them intimate letters? It is a rare magnetism that Donald Trump alone in the Republican Party possesses. And that could explain why he incredibly won in 2024 as the white ladies in their 70s, his age, and probably those in their 60s, or 50s, or 40s, and of course in their 30s, the age of his devotee, would probably have never voted for Democrats when he was around.

    Would any of his successors, pretend to be a Trumpian, or even more Trumpian than Trump? Probably a lot. Just look at the Republican political landscape in Arizona.

    But would a Vance, Rubio, Jordan, Paul, Cotton, Hawley, Britt, Lake etc. be able to exhibit a bizarre aura and carry his banner and culture, or would they be burdened by his legacy and become just copycats clumsily shouting MAGA slogans louder to get attention but do not possess his ability? Would they be able to insist that an Olympian had destroyed the pond even if his government’s lawyers dismissed the charge and looked pale in intimidation? Would they be able to turn around the investigation of the Epstein Files as he did? Would they be able to make a lot of billionaires even happier than they have been with his actions?

    Would any of them without the charisma and luck of Donald Trump be attractive enough to the voters to overcome the excesses of the President?

    The picture looks bleak.

JOHN P. LE PHONG

(This article appears on X, Facebook, and thelephongjournal.com)

    At the 2026 NATO Summit in Ankara, the President openly confided to the press: “My whole life, that’s all I do is deals… That’s how I became president, I guess.”

    Why did he say it? He became president because he had made a certain deal? With whom? What kind of a deal?

    MAGA has created the doctrine, a mentality, of Us versus Em and openly advocated racism that successfully sent Donald Trump into the White House.

    People could surmise that the president had a deal with MAGA. What else explains the MAGA Congress so taciturn and compliant where the president’s acts are concerned? Such a deal would be a fabulously profitable deal. Not people’s welfare, not national interest or even security. Just a profitable deal for the parties to the deal.

    Now that the president has obtained all he wanted, would the deal continue?

    The instance in Bruxelles in 2017 where he pushed the leader of another country aside so he could emerge to the first row of world leaders standing, indicated that the president constantly, instinctively, and intuitively looks out for himself to be the first. For such programmed personality, anything he says or does could not be casual, shooting from the hip, or off the kilter but in fact well thought out in advance, programmed to serve the goal of whatever game he is playing.

    MAGA has made elections not about political high-minded ideals, the economy or prices of groceries but Us against Them. And that could be a fad, the novelty of the MAGA phenomenon that, like Hollywood’s all other fads, would fade away. Voters voted MAGA because they wanted the messiness of the state of the nation to be cleaned up as it had promised. But there are signs the voters have probably turned back to live their normal life and are no longer extremist. Democratic way of life such as paying for gas at less than 3 dollars a gallon, knowing for sure who are those who ride the truck in mask and carrying weapons, paying the same price or cheaper for a comparable American device made abroad, etc., is probably too enchanted to ordinary people for MAGA to uproot it, throw it away, and replace it with their choice of a despotic political system.

    It seems MAGA has nothing new to offer. Its attack on Anthony Fauci, clamoring on the false claim of election fraud, are stale tactics that it is wheeling out seemingly without bothering to find out if its base may get tired of them. With MAGA in total power, occupying all four branches of government, for almost two years, its supporters should now see that MAGA is even messier, negligent, and strange in managing the economy, international relations, and national security.

    With MAGA in charge, American politics has stopped being an Art. It is reduced to bulldozing. MAGA’s MO is just bulldozing forward, and all their statements that a regular politician needs to be careful about speaking are just shooting air that don’t mean much, and they suffer no consequences because MAGA possesses the bulldozer and the roads. MAGA swooped in at midnight to take a leader of a foreign country to prison. Was it to get more oil and prevent drugs from getting into the U.S.? Out of the blue, they sent cruise missiles thousands of miles away to kill the top officials of another. Was it to prevent their country from making nuclear weapons? Wasn’t there a more nuanced method to get the same or better result?

Where are we? Dejà vu? The U.S. dropped 7.6 million tons of bombs on Viet Nam, three times the tonnage used in WWII, and much more than the bombs dropped on Iran so far AND put boots on the ground – for ten years, trying to prevent the North Vietnamese Communists from crossing Parallel 17. The War ended up with the North Vietnamese not just crossing the 17^th Parallel but taking the whole country.

    In ordering the bombing of Iran, MAGA leadership has forgotten the lesson or maybe too young to remember. Or maybe the hubris of wanting to do one better than the achievement of a black Democratic president was in the way of thinking clearly and rationally.

    The president said that he became president after he had made deals. Does it mean a deal with the American people? -Unlikely as we know that he does not talk deals with a nobody such as an American voter. It must be with MAGA a large number of its members are billionaires. Is he implying that starting the Iran War was part of the deal, but is no longer his thing or responsibility? Is he washing his hands off the war? Does he signal to the nation that he is contentedly sailing into the sunset, and now MAGA will be on their own? As if saying to MAGA you must see that I have had no quality time with Barron. I want to play EA Sports FC 25 with him.

    But MAGA does not seem to be competent on its own. The dominance of the president has stunted Republican leadership. Representative Jim Jordan is still loudly investigating election fraud, and Senator Rand Paul subpoenaed Dr. Anthony Fauci to answer his question concerning the origins of COVID and triumphantly referred him to the DOJ for contempt charge.

    Democrats can entertain some hope. Three candidates who have persistently claimed election frauds won the Arizona GOP primaries for the three most important state offices, governor, attorney general, and secretary of state. People just wonder if there is no sunlight in Arizona for these people to see that the emperor has no clothes on. Or probably they do know but continue insisting on the false claim, trusting that it will work for them banking on many Arizonans still dazed in the illusion.

    The Fauci fallacy won’t work either despite the labored and persistent effort by Rand Paul, a doctor himself. Dr. Fauci was just a director of an agency who had answered questions on the subject extensively. Rand Paul is not just a doctor but also a U.S. senator with much more power and means to find the answer for himself. What have he and his Republican colleagues done to answer the question if they are so obsessed with finding it? Putting him on the witness stand before his committee was more of a show than a serious endeavor to find the truth.

   If the Democrats could convince the ordinary people of Arizona to vote these MAGA delusional demagogues off the ballots and show the American voters how many Americans would have died if Dr. Fauci had not championed preventive measures during the COVID pandemic, they would be able to find their way back to governing.

JOHN P. LE PHONG

(This article appears on X, thelephongjournal.com, and Facebook

    President Donald John Trump is a revolutionary true to the meaning of the word. He started and completed a revolution, remarkably without the baggage of killing and maiming.

    He has dramatically transformed the American political landscape. The attributes of the nice and noble approach to politics such as gentlemanliness, courteousness, politeness, even telling the truth are all gone. He took politics from the long coat-tailed, wigged gentlemen sans long coattails and wigs, and brought it to the ordinary citizens, who saw nothing wrong with getting into the House of Congress not by the front door, but by climbing the walls and breaking the windows. The ordinary citizens, the Joes and Janes, whose blood boiled when they heard an immigrant commit a crime, always consider him their Dear Leader. They have formed the base and are faithful cadres of MAGA. They don’t greet “the others”, meaning their opponents, with “Have a good day” but “F— you”. Respect for the institutions, such as don’t break the windows of the Capitol, don’t throw a U.S. senator of the other party down and smash his face against the surface of the street, has ceased to exist. Advice and Consent is out, guns and fists, literally and figuratively, are in.

    The American Democratic Society’s norms that we have known them have been changed drastically. The President has turned the White House into pure blue and blonde (or gold).

    Where the revolutionary goes, of course, his followers follow, and naturally into his cabinet. Regardless of the philosophy behind his picks to serve in his administration, true to his base, he brought the ordinary Joes and Janes into his government.

    But ordinary people have their limits that is why they are called ordinary. To put a mask on to hunt for illegal immigrants, convincing the willing Arabs to part with their billions, to chase after anti-MAGA opponents, seem to have been done competently by them, even though the last one seems to have run into some thoughtlessness and incompetence.

    But the government of a country as huge and complicated as the United States of America sooner or later will run into huge and complicated problems requiring skills, brains, and temperament to handle them effectively. The national affairs in the first half of this year seem to indicate MAGA’s lack of it.  So, wooing ordinary people for votes and staying away from hiring high mental caliber people for government works for fear of loss of control and loyalty, are two very different things. The latter may lead to neglect and failure in governing.

    The president understood politics for what it essentially is: a game – pure and simple. Nothing to do with serving the people, or higher calls, or national (implying a nation of necessarily different people) security. He understood how it worked better than the Democrats and read the pulse smartly.

    Political power in America is the votes. He said that his supporters were so loyal they would stick with him even if he stood in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shot somebody. It was considered by the ruling polite society, which was about to be displaced, as a reckless statement. But in hindsight, as things turned out, that statement eerily indicated his confidence and insight. It showed him to be an astute politician who knew his voters.

    For years the so-called establishment had laughed about him and never taken him seriously. They besieged him with problems of all kinds. He is not a Teflon businessman or politician to be sure. Problems have not slid off him. He took them head-on and beat them or made it go off the target, himself, with all the means he could think of including denying and stubbornly not accepting what his opponents believed to be the truth. He has had a single purpose, and all his energy is focused on it: winning and winning at all costs.

    He is an Ayn Randian pragmatist: relentlessly pursuing self-interest but carefully staying within the rules of the game. If the rules constrained him, he would work to beat the rules by entering politics and went for the most powerful position on earth: the U.S. Presidency.

    At the 2026 NATO Summit in Ankara, the President openly confided to the press: “My whole life, that’s all I do is deals… That’s how I became president, I guess.”

    This must be an accurate self-description of who he is, a dealmaker, an honest assessment of himself at the age of 80 looking back. He does not claim to be the most successful businessman. He does not claim to be the most astute American politican even though he could very well be.

    Why did he say it?

JOHN P. LE PHONG

(This article appears on X, thelephongjournal.com, and Facebook)

    Elon Musk is not a racist, and he has publicly confirmed it with evidence. So, when he protested the casting of a non-white actress to play Helen of Troy and offers Mel Gibson 100MM to remake The Odyssey to reflect whiteness in the story because it was a story about the Greeks, it has nothing to do with racism. He is just being righteous and indignant and wants to take a firm stand against Hollywood’s pervert tendency of stretching the facts when it comes to adapting historical stories.

    Set aside for now that Helen was a mythological character, probably fictionalized by Homer and other writers, with no genetic trait linked to any race. Homer did not give any description in his novels of her physical features leaving other authors after him the liberty of describing her whatever way they wanted. An English writer even rhapsodized her with Was this the face that launched a thousand ships. Some authors pictured her hair as blonde; others described it as black. History noted that the Greeks had mingled extensively with the North Africans especially the Egyptians, so casting a black actress to play Helen is as reasonable as casting Elizabeth Taylor to play Cleopatra (regardless of her lineage, she was born in Egypt and had lived there all her life, her skin under the scorching sun could not have been as white as Ms. Taylor’s. Given that two powerful guys of the time, Caesar and Antony, madly fell for her, it is reasonable to deduce that Cleopatra was exotic and non-white). Therefore, if Helen were a real Greek, her skin could probably have been exotically honey or dark.

    My real concern for Mr. Musk is that his crusade may cost him a whole lot more than a few hundred million dollars.

    To correct Hollywood’s past sins, he must pay Mr. Gibson another 100MM to remake his own movie Passion of Christ to cast a middle Eastern actor to play Christ. Jim Caviezel, an American, was offensively miscast.  Then, many more 100MM to replace Robert Powell in Jesus of Nazareth Remake, Willem Dafoe in The Last Temptation of Christ Remake, Diogo Morgado in Son of God Remake, Ted Neeley in Jesus Christ Superstar Remake, Oscar Isaac in The Nativity Story, and Tobias Menzies in The Nativity.

    Don’t forget Moses, the famous biblical Jew, played by the whitest of white actors Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments. Another role of his must also be recast with a darker skinned actor to play Ben Hur.

    There are many other miscast movies that must be corrected. Exodus: Gods and Kings and Moses the Lawgiver must also be remade to replace Christian Bale and Burt Lancaster. These are epic movies; a remake would require twice or three time the amount Mr. Musk offers Mr. Gibson. Then Russell Crowe must be replaced in Noah Remake, and Jon Voight in Noah’s Ark. Then, Richard Gere in King David, Finlay Currie in David and Bathsheba, Langley Kirkwood in The Bible, Victor Mature in Samson and Delilah, Taylor James in Samson, Yul Brynner in Solomon and Sheba, and Ben Cross in Solomon.

    Of course, Mr. Musk must not forget the movies about one of the most revere biblical characters on earth, Mary, Mother of Jesus. So, Maia Morgenstern in The Passion of the Christ and Keisha Castle-Hughes in The Nativity Story must be replaced.

    Hollywood has also made movies about the East with slanted eyed historical figures but cast real blue-eyed cousins of Helen to play them. More money is needed to finance the remaking to replace them with actors more representative of the characters and throw out John Wayne from the “The Conqueror”, and Omar Sharif, James Mason, and Telly Savalas from “Genghis Khan”. Then, Mr. Musk must look into Attila the Hun movies to clean up the casting to take Gerard Butler, Anthony Quinn, Jack Palance out.

    There are hundreds or more such movies or shows committing the worse sin of casting blond-haired and blue-eyed actors to play real, not fictitious, historical characters with darker skin, true black hair, and slanted eyes.

    His crusade is truly noble. Conservatively estimated, however, he is looking at an expense of at least ten billion dollars upfront.

JOHN P. LE PHONG

(This article appears on X, thelephongjournal.com, and Facebook)

    The history of the Jews is full of mind-boggling, heartbreaking, irrational, inhuman, and irrationally and inhumanly brutal oppressions by others. All the catastrophes that have befallen them were caused by men – other men, other races. It is understandable that they are always wearied, anxious, nervous, permanently on the alert for bad deeds from others.

    After WWII, the UN took an overdue step to allow and help the Jews to form a country on the ancient land they had claimed to be their own since biblical time, a piece of land about less than 300 miles long and 75 miles wide. But a huge portion in the middle of it was ceded to the Palestinians to form their own territory, the West Bank, that reduces the central part of Israel to about 6 miles wide, making it one of the smallest nations on earth, but the most vulnerable because of where it sits. A few thousand Palestinians could join hands from the border of the West Bank to the Mediterranean and cut Israel in half.

    Whether it was a Machiavelli scheme by the world powers to keep Israel in check considering its citizens’ out-of-this-world brain power but that, the small size of their country, has been the deep cause of Israel’s anxiety and nervousness. The size of a nation’s territory contributes tremendously to its national defense. If anyone is still in doubt, ask the Russian president. Russia is about 765 times larger than Israel spanning over 40% of European landmass and 30% of Asia. But Mr. Putin was so worried about its security that he felt the need to enter a war against its tiny neighbor, killing hundreds of thousands of people, just to take more land from it.

    Therefore, it is not bombing, assassination, or killing other countries’ leadership. The landmass is its best defense: when an enemy see the big size of a country, it must have a second thought about picking a fight with it.

    That chance came to Israel in 1956 when Israel took over the Sinai Peninsular when the president of Egypt, which straddles the Suez Canal, decided to nationalize the Canal. Israel had to leave Sinai because, as strange as it might seem, it allied itself with France and England, two small potatoes compared to the other alliance of two gigantic potatoes, the U.S.A. and the Soviet Union, which opposed its occupation.

    The Vietnamese have a saying fortune does not come twice. But it did about 10 years later in 1967 to the Israelis thanks to the follies of the same people, theEgyptians who challenged the Western world, again.

    Unlike the first time, Israel’s occupation of the peninsular this time lasted 15 years. Then again, it was forced to return the land, strategically crucial to its security, prosperity, and peace, to Egypt for world peace.

    But now things have changed, earthshakingly so, but in the Israelis’ favor – big favor.

    In Ankara, the President of the United States of America proclaimed a new doctrine, let’s call it the Trump Territory Doctrine:

             “We took Greenland and then stupidly we gave it back. We shouldn’t have given it back to them because we’re the ones that need it. We need it for the protection of the world — not just the United States.”

    Interpretation: If one country occupied a parcel of land of another for a period of time, the former would have the right to claim that land as its own.

    The president uses the doctrine to claim Greenland even though the U.S. took Greenland from Germany during WWII, not from Denmark to which Greenland had belonged. And its presence in Greenland was with the agreement of the Danish government that, the agreement, “fully recognizes the sovereignty” of Denmark over Greenland.

    Under this doctrine, Israel has a better and more solid ground to claim Sinai as its own because it took over Sinai in a military conflict with Egypt which, this must be emphasized, was the aggressor.

    The TTD is a God given legality for Israel – that could be short-lived but will last at least until 2029 – to correct the mistakes made by political leaders including its own former prime minister, Menachem Begin, when it was established, in 1957, and in 1979. Just like the Monroe Doctrine, which is still enforceable and unopposed in modern times, the TTD is backed by the U.S.A. with an action president.

    What that means is nobody would dare to oppose Israel’s application of the TTD to take back Sinai when it is still fresh in their mind that the U.S. has just picked up at midnight the leader of one country and his wife and transported them to a prison in New York – nobody dare say a word – and, in one swoop, killed the supreme leader of another and his entourage – and nobody dare say a word.

JOHN P. LE PHONG                                                                                                     (This Article appears on thelephongjournal.com, Facebook, and X)

    Fareed Zakaria is a journalist and political commentator I have greatly admired and respected. I have watched his broadcast as faithfully and frequently as possible. In one of his broadcasts, he observed that Putin’s premises for success in the Ukrainian war, Ukraine’s weakness and the West was tired of the war, have collapsed. He suggested that this is an opportunity for the U.S. to intervene (review his show) with its ability of sanctions and military aids to Ukraine that would probably lead to a peace deal.

    It is a wise suggestion to the Trump administration. But should or would Europe completely agree?

    The Americans’ decision to side with Putin in the Ukrainian war, criticism of the Europeans on immigrants’ issues, openly siding with extremists in Europe, withdrawal from the Western Front …, if not a betrayal from Europe’s point of view, is a clear signal that the two Atlantic allies are no longer aligned, and the new world order does not find the U.S. to be the leader of the free world willing to provide a security umbrella for Europe. America clearly wants to pursue a path different if not far away from Western traditional human ideals. Even if the diversion would probably be short termed for as long as MAGA is in power, Europe must now make a choice between an independent center of world power or remaining vassal to the U.S.

    The world has already formed clusters of power centers. That is a good thing as peace and Democracy prevail when there are opposing forces tugging at one another and balancing out their excesses. But the forces must be strong enough to execute such balancing.

    Europe has been a beacon of high road politics, a political shining light on the hill for centuries. It can be relevant and matters again in world politics if it could find the will to turn itself into a significant power center to be reckoned with on its own. It could wean itself off the U.S. instead of leaning on it. The day of relying on others for its stability and for making decisions for itself should be left behind. Ukraine would not have suffered this disastrous war if Europe were strong. A strong and militarily consequential Europe would contribute tremendously to world peace. One could imagine that the Iranian nuclear weapon issue and the disastrous confrontation in the Strait of Hormuz could have been avoided.

    When MAGA displays its heavy-handed attitude toward its allies, revealing its new direction in sending its vice president – representing not just one political party’s policy but the political tendency of the majority of the country – to campaign for Viktor Orban the dictator wannabe of Hungary universally disliked and distrusted by the European Union, Canada shows a stiffer backbone than Europe in dealing with them. It was a strange spectacle witnessing MAGA lecturing Europe on racism and Europe listening not just politely but at times submissively and even fawningly. France, despite its innate sense of Gaullist hauteur, has bent. The English suddenly love to dine at the White House. The old but wise saying “with friends like that, who needs enemies” must and should have come to the European mind when the U.S. wants to take over Greenland.

    Europe cannot live on the belief that without the USA, it may not sustain its security against foreign forces and even internal conflicts, minding its swashbuckling spirit of some of its people that might lead to disaster such as WWI and II (75 years should be long enough to find a mechanism to prevent it from happening again). The new U.S. foreign affair policy should serve as a wake-up call. Ukraine is the case in point. The whole idea of creating, building, and maintaining NATO was to deter foreign aggressors. Russia’s attack and invasion of Ukraine, an affront not just to the core Democratic principles but also to world peace, should have been a call to action by Europe even if Ukraine was not its member.

    In fact, an independent Europe would be good for a Democratic U.S.A.

JOHN P. LE PHONG

(This article appears on X, Facebook, and thelephongjournal.com)